Astrobiologists and planetary scientists worldwide have been engaged in searching traces of life on planets and satellites for quite some time now. While their relentless endeavors have led to many remarkable discoveries, there still remain a many unresolved mysteries of outer space which the scientists are yet to discover. One such topic of interest being locating atmospheric conditions conducive to supporting life oxygen breathing and water based life. However, when it comes to calculating the chances of sustaining earth-like life on Titan, Saturn’s moon, where temperatures are unfathomably cold to support aqueous biochemistry, scientists are finding it much difficult to understand which chemical present in its environment could signal the possibility of the existence of life based on hydrocarbons.

A team of researchers from Cornell University, have allegedly discovered a plausible candidate of chemical that future Titan missions could base their search on. It was revealed by the team of researchers on the computer stimulation study that appeared on Science Advances as on February 27th that they have discovered the presence of acrylonitrile chemical, a hydrocarbon, on Titan’s atmosphere that has the capacity to take the shape of a structure showcasing characteristics of flexibility and toughness, very similar to the membranes that envelops living cells on Earth and form outer surfaces or boundaries of organelles such as nucleus and mitochondria.

This could be a remarkable finding in the field of computational astronomic studies for scientists who have their research based on the study of Titan’s geochemistry. The interesting topography of Titan has attracted an increasing number of planetary scientists who study the astronomy of the satellite like many of their contemporaries whose favorite is moon.